Transponders are generally small sized data carriers with a memory means that is accessible by electromagnetic fields created by an access device, and thus without any physical contact between the access device and the transponder. Additionally, such transponders usually operate without a battery as they extract their operating energy from the energy of the electromagnetic fields.
Due to their small size and their unlimited lifetime, such transponders or tags are most suitable for carrying information regarding an object directly on or in the object.
For example, a transponder may be embedded in a spectacle frame and programmed with information relating to the spectacle, e.g. owner, optician, contact details, details of the lenses, and so on. In this case, specific information about the object is stored in the memory means of the transponder. This requires that the memory means is large enough to store the required amount of data, and also that any access device for reading, processing and/or storing the data can handle the data structure in order to extract the information from the raw data. The latter requirement implies a data structure standard of some sort, which in turn implies a lack of flexibility in changing the data structure if e.g. a further information becomes important and needs to be stored.
An alternative to storing information about an object in the memory means of the transponder is to store information in a data base system at a database provider, e.g. an optician's organization, and to relate this information to a particular pair of spectacles by means of a, preferably worldwide, unique number stored in the transponder.
Such a worldwide unique number is used for animal tagging, and health regulations in some countries require that domestic animals like cats and dogs be tagged with a transponder that contains a worldwide unique number. The main advantage is that only the data structure for the worldwide unique number requires a standard, while the type of information stored about the object and the data structure relating to this information may differ from country to country or database provider to database provider.
Even though such a worldwide unique number will be readable with standard technical equipment and offers the flexibility to store different and updated information about the object in a database, access to the database is required in order to obtain any information at all related to the object. If such access is not available, e.g. because the object is in a different country or the person reading the worldwide unique number has no rights to access the data base or there is a technical defect in the database access system, then the Information regarding the object can not be retrieved. The same applies if there is no database entry relating to the object, e.g. because it has not been registered. The transponder then fails to serve its purpose.
Accordingly, there is a need for improved methods, systems and transponders that allow to extract usable information relating to an object from a transponder without the need to access databases or to analyze data structures.